Media not helping anorexics

A small collection of websites have gotten plenty of media attention in France, and courts have even banned their existence. These websites are “pro-anorexia” or “pro-bulimia” – created by women and men suffering from eating disorders. Instead of trying to get healthy, they embrace their underweight frames and openly celebrate them in cyberspace. They’ve even given nicknames to the disorders: Ana and Mia, respectively.

A French court ruling made these websites illegal last year. Not surprisingly, the decision was met with controversy and free speech arguments. But in my opinion, this is not so much a free speech issue as a social problem. Why are they looking at outlawing the websites when they should be looking at why the websites exist in the first place?

Anorexia and bulimia are very dangerous eating disorders. Many young women and men have died from starving themselves. These are not new diseases; however; their prevalence has grown more and more common in the last century. And they are far more common in the Western world.

The media did not draw very much attention to eating disorders until Karen Carpenter’s death in 1983. The 32-year-old singer, who formed the duo The Carpenters alongside her brother Richard, died of complications (heart failure) related to her anorexia, although she had been in recovery for years. Until then, eating disorders were seen as simple, private problems, and the only solution was to tell anorexic and bulimic individuals to just eat something. Obviously the problem is more complicated than that, but this court ruling is not treating it as so.

Designers and models have attempted to “speak out” against the whole ideal body type phenomenon. Jean-Paul Gautlier, a French designer, says that anorexia is a problem solved not by laws, but by understanding. That may be true, but how much understanding is he doing by placing those same size zero models on the runway? The majority of runway and magazine models are underweight. I’ve even seen mannequins in stores that had the extra-small shirts clipped in the back because they were too big. And when was the last time you saw a size eight girl walking down a high fashion runway?

It’s not surprising that these things happen when we get such conflicting messages and ideas from the media. While everyone is saying “love your body the way it is,” they’re choosing the same unrealistic bodies to represent women. If they do not love our bodies, it makes it hard for us to listen to that advice.

Therefore, the problem is not with the people behind these pro-ana and pro-mia websites: punishing them will not instantly cure them. The problem is with the fact that we live in a society where the media is encouraging us to get to this point.

The same problem exists with alcohol consumption. You can die from alcohol poisoning just as easily as you can from starving yourself. And yet there are alcohol advertisements all over the place, telling us to do harm to our own bodies as well. There are songs about getting out of bed and brushing your teeth with a bottle of whiskey. There are about 126 Facebook fan pages dedicated to alcohol, and another 500 plus dedicated to beer alone. And then when underage drinking becomes an epidemic, no one knows why.

There is a much bigger problem here than sick people making websites for other sick people. The problem is that there are sick people. The websites are just a symptom of our culture.

What can we do? First, instead of fining the site’s creators, we could offer them help. Putting them in jail or making them pay heavy fines will not make them stop starving themselves.

Secondly, society needs to change. All body types need to be portrayed in magazines and ads, without calling to attention that these women are “plus-size.” Dove has tried doing this already with their Campaign for Real Beauty, but not many others have followed suit. Tyra Banks gained weight and tried to make every woman feel comfortable at her weight on her talk show, but on her reality show America’s Next Top Model, there is usually only one plus size or average, model out of twelve contestants. That may be what the industry wants, but maybe the industry shouldn’t have so much power over a young woman’s, or a young man’s, self-image.

If banning pro-anorexia websites isn’t stopping the presence of anorexia, there needs to be a better solution and it needs to be dealt with by everyone. Society created this problem; therefore, society needs to solve it.

Lauren Vincent is a Collegian columnist. She can be reached at lvincent@student.umass.edu.

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Comments

Christina Hoff Sommers dealt with this 15 years ago – yes some women do die of anorexia and it is a serious issue, but it is also very VERY rare. Sommers took apart the statistics and showed them to be bogus, and then made a point that I remember to this day: if you really had the number of young women dying of anorexia that they claim are dying, then any time you had a large number of young women assembled, you would need a line of ambulances to cart off the bodies.

It is most certainly NOT rare, Ed. Look at the statistics. It is estimated that 8 million Americans have an eating disorder – seven million women and one million men. It’s the leading cause of death for adolescent and young women. And the mortality rate is twelve times higher than any other cause for women 15 – 24. It’s especially bad with minorities.

The problem is that the media glamorizes it and insurance companies then refuse to pay for treatment, although it’s just as bad as any other mental disease – worse in fact, since it’s often fatal. Only about a third of anorexics ever recover.

I think the main problem with our society is displayed in the above two posts: the focus on weight. The problem is not how much a person weighs, be it too much or too little, or even “just right”. The origin of ALL eating disorders is the same – the inability to handle negative emotions in a healthy way. The focus should be on the emotional and biological issues behind EDs, not just the visible effects.

Eating disorders have biological origins, which may be triggered by the media…or by childhood events, or by a nasty breakup, or by any number of other things. Let’s focus on finding a cure instead of assigning blame.

The problem with several of these responses is that anorexia is NOT ABOUT FOOD! As an anorexic currently in recovery and very recently released from a hospital stay that included a feeding tube, the feelings and thoughts to restrict and starve stay long after the refeeding process starts.

That’s because a. anorexia and other eating disorders have a genetic component, making them hard to treat and b. just eating again doesn’t make life and dealing with emotions any easier.

For me, at least, starvation is a very powerful coping mechanism that when I utilize it, makes me numb. Hence both its allure and strong hold on me, even after seven hospital stays.

But not many people out there are championing “Let’s find a cure for eating disorders.” The stigma alone – just announce to someone you have anorexia; it’s just not the same thing as saying you have cancer, diabetes, etc. etc. – prevents society from wanting to help find a cure.

Regarding obesity – I have a friend who is obese. She is healthier than me, hasn’t been in the hospital ever, and enjoys life a hell of lot more as an obese person than I do as an anorexic. Just sayin’

And yet, anorexia is ultimately a product of western society; its just another problem we can afford ourselves, just like obesity.
I am sure no one doubts its seriousness, and I’m no scientist, but I am very skeptical of anorexia’s “genetic component.” It seems that many people are afraid to admit their problems are their own problems and do not belong to anyone else.

I would hardly call Dove’s attempts genuine, seeing as it’s owned by the same company that owns Axe body spray, whose commercials portray women as maniacal, sexual, emaciated man hunters. Dove is just trying to make more money off of this “Love your Body” campaign as well. They’re both fads, and disgustingly so.

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